The killings of Chhattisgarh

Adivasi leader Soni Sori speaks at the event where the testimonies of tribals who lost family members to violence was recorded

A violent death in Chhattisgarh follows a familiar script: it is first a mere statistic, an addition to the count of the dead in the battle between the State and the Maoists. The statistic soon becomes a story. The first draft of it is invariably contradicted in its retelling. Often, the only indubitable aspect of the death is the corpse with bullet wounds - and grieving relatives.

Truth is elusive in Chhattisgarh. Keep this in mind as you read this column.

In the last week of August, Home Minister Amit Shah said, in Raipur, that a "ruthless strategy" will "deliver the last blow" to left-wing extremism which, he predicted, would be eradicated by March 2026. Shah cited figures in support of his optimism: 189 Maoists had been killed this year alone. Security forces, Shah explained, were working to establish the rule of law and developing the areas dominated by Maoists.

Indeed, no State can countenance a challenge to its sovereignty.

In the same week of August, 68 persons travelled to Jagdalpur city from remote parts of Bastar division, whose seven districts spread across dense forests are the site of bloody battles between the State and Maoists.

Over the next three days, before a team of People's Union for Civil Liberties and senior Supreme Court lawyer Colin Gonsalves, each of the 68 was videographed as they narrated stories of security personnel killing their family members. Their testimonies pertained to 168 deaths in 46 incidents of violence. The data suggest multiple deaths occurred in some violent events.

The recorded video, running into 10 hours, is on PUCL's YouTube channel, but most testimonies are in Gondi and have yet to be translated and subtitled. I persuaded Degree Prasad Chauhan, president of the PUCL's Chhattisgarh Chapter, to provide me a preview of some accounts in Hindi. These narratives of cold-blooded killings shock regardless of the language used - as, for instance, the deposition of Lakhe Kartam does.

Lakhe said, on May 10, security personnel swooped down on his hut at Peediya village, Bijapur district, and killed his grandson, Pandu. Lakhe used the phrase "bhaga-bhaga kar maar diya" to describe how Pandu was shot dead. It's a phrase that appears in several depositions.

For instance, on the same day, at Itawada village, Bijapur district, Kamli Thati told her husband Suku that she would join him in plucking tendu leaves in the forest after cooking lunch. As she prepared to leave, security forces suddenly surrounded the village. Kamli was disallowed from joining Suku. She, too, said the police killed Suku "bhaga-bhaga ke" up the Peediya hillock.

I asked adivasi leader Soni Sori the meaning of "bhaga-bhaga kar maar diya." She said during search operations, villagers flee at the sight of uniformed men, who then chase and fire at them. But often also, Sori said, men are compelled to run and hunted down. The bodies of Pandu and Suku were not returned to their families. The last rites of Suku were performed by placing his belongings on a pile of firewood and setting them ablaze.

Srimuka, of Bijapur's Soni Punami village, said the police whisked away her son Beema when he was collecting tendu leaves one early morning. She claimed he was drowned in a pool, the body subsequently dumped at their dwelling unit. Soni Barse testified that her husband Joga, of Peediya village, was killed before her, despite her entreaties, when the two were collecting tendu leaves. Their accounts drip with grief that is compounded because of their incomprehension of why those whom they love were shot dead.

It is inconceivable that all the 68 fabricated their depositions, in unison, to malign the security forces. Chhattisgarh's morbid reality was depicted in journalist Malini Subramaniam's investigative story on the April 2 gunfight in the Korcholi-Nendra forests adjoining Bijapur's Gangalur village. Thirteen Maoists were killed. But three of them, villagers told Subramaniam, were certainly not Maoist. Incredibly, she found that "among those declared dead, not all were dead."

The animosity between the adivasis and the security forces will escalate as security camps mushroom in the Bastar forests. According to Citizens' Report on Security and Insecurity in Bastar, released in July, there is one security person to every nine civilians in the division, making it one of the "most militarised zones of the country." These camps are established late at night, without securing the consent of villagers, as is required under a slew of laws. Trees are illegally felled and individual or community land usurped. On May 17, 2021, CRPF jawans fired at an estimated 15,000 people protesting against a security camp established at Silger village, in Sukma district, killing three. Three years later, the protest continues.

The camps are required, it is argued, for security forces to establish "area domination" for fighting the Maoists and building roads and other infrastructure. A counter to this is that feverish development activities, under the gun's shadow, are designed to access Chhattisgarh's rich mineral resources. What cannot be debated, and justified, is that adivasis can be killed "bhaga-bhaga ke", in mockery of the very idea of the rule of law.

The writer is a senior journalist and author of Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste
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